Personal growth and all that
I mostly didn't put any negative stuff about my Italy trip on the postcards, because who wants to get a postcard full of complaints? There was some negative stuff, of course, though vastly outweighed by the positives. Rome was hot and dusty; Venice was chilly after dark. By Montreal standards everything is retardedly expensive, especially drinking water* since restaurants make you buy mineral water (though come to think of it I never insisted they bring me a glass from the tap - I like trying different kinds of mineral water, and Italy is well-endowed in this respect XD). I was stranded by public transit twice, once in Milan (strike) and once in Rome (maintenance, I think). The trains don't run on time, and one out of five I took was what I'd call severely late (I'm chronically tardy in my personal life, so to me "5-10 minutes late" equals "basically on time". As it does to Trenitalia ^^;). A train pass or ticket alone won't get you on a EuroStar or high-speed InterCity, you have to make a seat reservation which is 15 euros extra. I took Reactine the entire time because something - unknown pollens, old-building dust and mildew - was giving me hay fever of fluctuating intensity. There's queuing to get into museums. You have to carry your passport everywhere because everyone demands to see and/or keep your ID - if you want to pay with a credit card at H&M; if you want to rent a handheld audioguide at the Uffizi; if you want to use an internet café (antiterrorism law says the access provider has to make and retain a photocopy of the user's ID, even if it's a tourist popping in for half an hour to check their email, or a hotel with a computer in the lobby for guest use. It's not geared toward tourists, of course, it's geared toward brown people - most of these "internet points" are also international call centers and are run by Bangladeshi. What they hope to achieve... well, it's not my country =_=). I started missing rice and green tea after about 48 hours. I didn't bring moisturizer so my legs cracked up painfully and for some reason it didn't occur to me until the two weeks were nearly past that I could go to a pharmacy and buy moisturizer the way I'd bought Reactine, LOL GOOD THINKING. It's hard to get a good night of sleep in a youth hostel dorm because with the best of intentions there are still six or seven other people in the room making noise through the night. I had to find last-minute hotel rooms in Turin, and the one I booked in Rome had difficulties with la cucaracha, which I only discovered on the second night when I stepped on one. I got a refund but I had to kick up a fuss at the front desk. Most restaurants assume heathen tourists eat pasta with a knife and fork, whereas I was edumacated by French bourgeois in the ways of the table and can't even get it to my mouth without a spoon.** Shoulders and knees must be covered before one can enter churches - well, this isn't really a negative, it's simple respect, but I suppose this is as much a list of Things To Consider If You're Going There as anything (I know some people who're in Italy right now, even). *g* It does mean weather isn't the only point to consider w/r/t wardrobe choices. I was wearing dresses an inch or two above the knee a lot of the time, with a shawl or this little cape-like thing with short sleeves I bought, and I never got busted because the overall effect is fairly prim, I guess, but I saw other tourists being told to cover up. Also, if you're a girl and not wearing a church-appropriate outfit at all times, don't be fazed by the "ciao, bellissima".*** XD; I don't think I got more attention for being Asian, but I do think I got more attention for not being a scrawny Asian.
Speaking of Asian-ness, if "Nihao" or "No, not Canada, where are you really from?" bothers you... well. XD; People make assumptions here because maybe 75% of the Asians they encounter on a day-to-day basis will be first-gen immigrants, not native-born, and the vast majority of first-gen immigrants will answer the question in the spirit in which it was asked and see nothing wrong with it. In Italy I figure 95% of Asians are tourists from Asian countries and 4% are street vendors... so.
This is getting off-topic but I've thought of writing a post on the evolution of the White Man Nihao as I've experienced it - it only started in the late 90s. For the first few years the line was "Teach me how to say 'hello' in your language!" Then it was, "My Chinese friend taught me to say 'hello' - it's 'nihao', right? (usually very mangled)" Now it tends to be, "Oh, you're Chinese? ...Nihao! (better pronunciation)"
The next step, which I've actually witnessed, is white people using "nihao" on each other. As follows:
WHITE DUDE (answering phone): Hello?
OTHER WHITE DUDE: Nihao! How's it going?
It's increasingly obvious where this is going: "nihao" is the new "ciao" and may be here to stay. =_= When did the colloquial usage of "ciao" by non-Italians start, and were Italians annoyed by it? Before my time, but recent in absolute terms, I suspect.
The point isn't to whine, anyway; I'm the kind of person who finds even minor unpleasantnesses interesting as long as they're novel and don't last very long. XD But the point of travelling is as much the bad - or at any rate the unexpected - as the good, maybe. Both planes to and from Rome were filled with aging couples on package vacations, and when I said I was travelling alone and had booked everything myself they always expressed admiration. I hadn't thought of it like that - I had no one to go with me and no one to stay with there so of course I had to arrange everything myself, and I wasn't intimidated or overwhelmed because I didn't let myself be intimidated or overwhelmed. XD; Getting older is helpful in this respect because you can just say to yourself, "Well, you're 26 and if you still can't [get around in a strange city / demand a refund in a loud voice / etc.], there's not much hope for you." And then you do it.
There was that birthday meme going around re: Things I have learnt by the age of..., and one of the major things I've learnt is that if you're going to wait until you feel like a grown-up in order to act like a grown-up you'll wait forever. Nobody feels like a grown-up, it's all acting.
...Speaking of getting around I helped other tourists find their way several times. RL people probably find this funny, but I think I have a leg up on most travellers in unfamiliar cities because I assume I'm lost by default and am unfazed by it as long as I have a map to consult. As Forrest Gump found, people will follow you as long as you look like you know where you're going. XD;
* One of Rome's better points. A lot of her fountains are just potable water founts, usually without any sign they're so apart from the people drinking from them, and one is grateful. ^^; Otherwise I filled a bottle with tap water every morning and refilled in washrooms along the way - it always tasted perfectly fine.
** Remember that controversy about the Filipino-Canadian kid who was punished for table manners at school, and the très pur-laine principal was like, who's ever heard of eating with a fork and spoon? I may have wept a little for humanity.
*** Though "Ciao, bella" from potentially any male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five wasn't what got me, what got me was that "salve" is still a word. Seventh-grade Latin textbook flashbacks ahaha.
Speaking of Asian-ness, if "Nihao" or "No, not Canada, where are you really from?" bothers you... well. XD; People make assumptions here because maybe 75% of the Asians they encounter on a day-to-day basis will be first-gen immigrants, not native-born, and the vast majority of first-gen immigrants will answer the question in the spirit in which it was asked and see nothing wrong with it. In Italy I figure 95% of Asians are tourists from Asian countries and 4% are street vendors... so.
This is getting off-topic but I've thought of writing a post on the evolution of the White Man Nihao as I've experienced it - it only started in the late 90s. For the first few years the line was "Teach me how to say 'hello' in your language!" Then it was, "My Chinese friend taught me to say 'hello' - it's 'nihao', right? (usually very mangled)" Now it tends to be, "Oh, you're Chinese? ...Nihao! (better pronunciation)"
The next step, which I've actually witnessed, is white people using "nihao" on each other. As follows:
WHITE DUDE (answering phone): Hello?
OTHER WHITE DUDE: Nihao! How's it going?
It's increasingly obvious where this is going: "nihao" is the new "ciao" and may be here to stay. =_= When did the colloquial usage of "ciao" by non-Italians start, and were Italians annoyed by it? Before my time, but recent in absolute terms, I suspect.
The point isn't to whine, anyway; I'm the kind of person who finds even minor unpleasantnesses interesting as long as they're novel and don't last very long. XD But the point of travelling is as much the bad - or at any rate the unexpected - as the good, maybe. Both planes to and from Rome were filled with aging couples on package vacations, and when I said I was travelling alone and had booked everything myself they always expressed admiration. I hadn't thought of it like that - I had no one to go with me and no one to stay with there so of course I had to arrange everything myself, and I wasn't intimidated or overwhelmed because I didn't let myself be intimidated or overwhelmed. XD; Getting older is helpful in this respect because you can just say to yourself, "Well, you're 26 and if you still can't [get around in a strange city / demand a refund in a loud voice / etc.], there's not much hope for you." And then you do it.
There was that birthday meme going around re: Things I have learnt by the age of..., and one of the major things I've learnt is that if you're going to wait until you feel like a grown-up in order to act like a grown-up you'll wait forever. Nobody feels like a grown-up, it's all acting.
...Speaking of getting around I helped other tourists find their way several times. RL people probably find this funny, but I think I have a leg up on most travellers in unfamiliar cities because I assume I'm lost by default and am unfazed by it as long as I have a map to consult. As Forrest Gump found, people will follow you as long as you look like you know where you're going. XD;
* One of Rome's better points. A lot of her fountains are just potable water founts, usually without any sign they're so apart from the people drinking from them, and one is grateful. ^^; Otherwise I filled a bottle with tap water every morning and refilled in washrooms along the way - it always tasted perfectly fine.
** Remember that controversy about the Filipino-Canadian kid who was punished for table manners at school, and the très pur-laine principal was like, who's ever heard of eating with a fork and spoon? I may have wept a little for humanity.
*** Though "Ciao, bella" from potentially any male between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five wasn't what got me, what got me was that "salve" is still a word. Seventh-grade Latin textbook flashbacks ahaha.